Camila Mendes has been on the grind. It's been hard for the actor to find a moment of calm — a moment to breathe, a moment when she's not filming a new movie, wrapping up a season of Riverdale, or hopping between cities, meetings, and wardrobe fittings. "It's great, because it's all for good opportunities and things I want to do," Camila tells Teen Vogue.

But there is always a catch. "I seriously have problems when it comes to taking time to chill," she says. "I'm trying to learn how to be like, Do I need to say yes to this? Do I need to do that? Is it really worth it? Could I have a day for myself?"

So far the hard choices have been worth it. Camila, who is 24, is filming not one but two movies before Riverdale starts filming season four in July. She's also going to attend the exclusive, legendary Met Gala for the first time, and grappling with the pressures and public glory that can bring with it. It's a transformative time for the young star. During her first few years in Hollywood, she’s had to learn how to handle other people's assumptions about her while maintaining a sense of who she actually is and what she wants out of life, and for her burgeoning career.

But that breather she's been craving has been hard to come by. So when it’s time for Camila to sit down with Teen Vogue for the May cover story, the busy Riverdale star suggests meeting at Color Me Mine, the paint-your-own-pottery studio with shops across the United States. She has one day off during a week of shooting a supporting role in the Andy Samberg comedy Palm Springs, and she wants to do something soothing. "Everyone's so anxious all the time, it's just a part of our lives," she says. "This whole week I haven't been able to stop and do something like this, you know? Something that's not necessarily productive."

The irony, of course, is that this interview is still work; another day that she does not have time to disconnect, to not be "on," to just be a 20-something zoning out in her apartment or Marie Kondo-ing her closet. Camila’s statement on her Twitter banner seems to fit the mood: "I want to cry but I have things to do." Pottery painting will have to suffice, for now. So Camila sits, brushing green paint over the edges of the ceramic jewelry box she's chosen as her project for the day. "This feels therapeutic," she says.

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The nonstop hustle makes sense. Riverdale was Camila's first major acting gig, but with high episode orders every season, the show comes with short hiatus times that make it difficult to schedule other projects. As a result, Camila's IMDb page is still, understandably, in its early stages. There are a couple of music videos: She's in Maggie Rogers' "Give a Little," dancing in an empty pool, and she channels a waitress with a lot of pent-up energy in the Chainsmokers' video for "Side Effects." And a few films: Camila has supporting roles in Netflix's The Perfect Date, where she plays a rich, popular girl who catches the eye of Noah Centineo's Brooks Rattigan, and in the indie The New Romantic, as an experienced sugar baby who ushers a naive college girl into the lifestyle. Unrelenting work and a fear of burnout are hallmarks of her generation, and now Camila finds herself in an era of her career when the pressure is on to prove her work ethic and range. "Nothing is guaranteed," she says. "A lot of people think that once you've reached this point you can book whatever you want, but it's not like that at all."

With that in mind, Camila is about to take part in one of Hollywood's most coveted opportunities. On the first Monday in May, she'll grace the Met Gala’s red carpet for the first time. Though Camila declines to tell Teen Vogue which designer she'll be dressed by for the event ("I don't know what I'm allowed to talk about yet!"), she expresses excitement about what she's seen of the look so far. "It's awesome," she says. The only thing she’s nervous about is that her shooting schedule means she doesn't get to try on the full look until right before the big day.

In her personal style, Camila takes a laid-back approach. The day we paint pottery, she shows up in high-waisted blue jeans, a simple white T-shirt, and a black denim jacket. “Maybe this is bad to say for a fashion magazine, but I never really cared much about the labels of designer clothing,” she says. “I really care more about style.” Of course, the Met Gala — in which the biggest names in fashion choose actors and other public figures to build a look around — offers the chance to work directly with a designer on their artistic vision. That’s something Camila has gained appreciation for since Riverdale thrust her into a whole new fashion realm. “Just being in fittings so much, [you pick] up on certain concepts and the way that the stylist thinks, and the costume designer thinks,” she says. This year, the Met Gala’s theme is "camp.” That’s fitting for a star of Riverdale, a show brimming with noir campiness — and an interesting contrast to the relatively stripped-down aesthetic Camila presents in her day-to-day style.

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The Met Gala is also the type of event that a lot of celebrities take great pains — literally — getting ready for. Last year, Kim Kardashian wrote on her app about the intense cleanse and workout regimen she underwent to prep for it, and in 2016 Vogue posted a video of Kardashian and Kendall Jenner discussing their Met Gala "goal weights." Camila, however, is trying to avoid the intense body pressure that can be associated with major red carpets. In 2017, she started talking publicly about her struggles with bulimia, and vowed in 2018 that she was done with dieting. That's not something she's looking to change just because it's time to put on a fancy dress.

It might be worth noting that when asked about her relationship with dieting, Camila picks up the ham-and-cheese baguette sandwich she brought for lunch and stuffs it in her mouth, laughing as she does so. "I've kind of learned to let it go when it comes to whatever expectations there might be for my body," she says.

Still, it becomes clear throughout our two-hour conversation how much image-related pressures are on Camila's mind, even as she tries to resist those pressures, or at least calibrate a healthier relationship with them. The culture around bodies in Hollywood is aggressive and often damaging, and Camila says she still has rough days when it comes to her relationship with her body. "Last night I was thinking to myself how bloated I felt," she says. "But I've accepted that that's a feeling that's going to happen, and to not put too much weight on it." The fashion education she's gotten in the industry so far has given her a new perspective on how clothes work on the body that she has. "Whatever body I have at the time [of the Met Gala] is the body that I have," she says. She knows she won't be any less glam for it.

In a way, the Met Gala is one part of what could be considered our extended introduction to Camila Mendes. As an actor, she is still primarily known as Veronica Lodge, the take-charge Riverdale socialite who finds herself embroiled in crime and intrigue. She's played Veronica for three seasons. So far, her other characters, though equipped with unique takes on the world, all share a few key traits with her most well-known leading lady. Like Veronica in Riverdale, Shelby in The Perfect Date and Morgan in The New Romantic are young, confident women, smooth and put-together. They're also rich, popular types, though rarely do they fall into the worn-out trope of the "rich, popular b*tch." Instead, these women, as Camila plays them, are often empathetic (on Riverdale), enigmatic (in The New Romantic), or simply know what they want and aren't afraid to vocalize it (in The Perfect Date).

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For Camila, these are roles that don't exactly count as playing herself but do overlap with who she is: self-assured, suave, and outspoken about her priorities. But she does see a type settling in, so she’s working to branch out without coming off as resentful of her opportunities so far.

Though there haven't been many, Camila’s roles have given audiences a good look at what makes her so compelling as a performer. She has a commanding presence coupled with a tangible vulnerability. Camila has strong features — those eyebrows! — with big, open eyes, and a slyly expressive mouth. She invites viewers into her characters while at the same time making it clear that these young women have boundaries, walls they've put up against the world at large. That's an acting choice, for sure, and one that's served her well on Riverdale through three seasons. It also happens to mirror Camila's approach to her own fame.

"I'm not a private person," Camila says. "I don't like hiding. But the more I get used to this lifestyle the more I reevaluate what I want to share and what I don't." She and her Riverdale costars have acclimated to their lives as public figures. With that experience comes a deeper knowledge of the ramifications of everyone always acting like they know your business. But Camila is trying not to let that false familiarity bother her too much these days. She's the one who brings up, for example, the hypothetical possibility if that her relationship with Riverdale costar Charles Melton could one day end, using it as an example of what she wouldn't try to conceal from the public. "That's a part of life. I wouldn't be embarrassed about it. It happens," she says. Twitter comments about her relationship used to get to her, but recently she's learned how to let them go. "I know I'm happy, and I know where I am in my life, so I'm going to let [people on Twitter] say whatever they want. Why should I care?"

For a young actor, social media and public perception also play integral roles in securing the next gig. Sometimes producers are looking for personas and built-in audiences as much as they're looking for a skilled performance. "[Social media] feeds into questions of 'Who am I? What's my brand?’" Camila says. "I don't feel the need to brand myself. In fact, I feel the need to purposely not brand myself."

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But avoiding a brand is hard for any young public figure. Camila is part of a cast of hot young people on a wildly popular CW show, so she's regarded as young and fresh; she's talked publicly about her struggles with an eating disorder, so she's also, in part, thought of as outspoken about important issues, and has been lumped in with the larger body-positivity movement. Some casting directors have branded her as the confident popular girl instead of the underdog outcast type, though she has projects in the works that might change that. Brands tend to sneak up and adhere themselves to young stars even if they don't ask for them. It's up to the public to keep minds open and flexible as much as it's up to the stars to put in the work on who they most want to be.

"I'm going to value myself for what I do and what I bring to the world, and my work," Camila says. And there is plenty on the horizon in that arena. Camila's face lights up most when the topic turns to an indie she starred in called Coyote Lake, which has yet to be released. It was a rare opportunity to step completely out of herself for a part. Directed by Sara Seligman, the film follows a mother and daughter running a bed-and-breakfast on the border of Texas and Mexico. The mother, played by Adriana Barraza, drugs unsuspecting drug runners and human traffickers and drowns them in a nearby lake, justifying her actions as ridding the world of evil people. Camila describes her character as "young, naive, [and] tomboyish," a young woman whose mother has controlled and brainwashed her, whose chest is bound, who wears little to no makeup. "It's just such a different role," Camila says. "Coming from a theater background, I really love digging into these kinds of characters. For Shelby in The Perfect Date, I don't have to stretch that far to play her. She's pretty much a magnified version of me, to an extent. But I love playing characters where I really don't know their experience at first, where I can really transform."

Camila is well aware that she carries herself with a certain confidence, and that it has informed how she’s been cast so far. "I always need to mask that part of my personality in auditions," she says. "Even when I'm just walking in, I have to put on a little bit of a doe-eyed face, this young energy." Camila doesn't like those moments. But for an actor at a crossroads early in her career, questions about image are everywhere. "I don't want anyone to ever just see me as one thing. I want to be malleable, I want to be able to blend into different groups [and types] of people. I don't want to be defined."

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Despite — or maybe because of — the pressure and the hustle, Camila is not worried about any early typecasting sticking to her. "I feel good about where I'm headed," she says. "I don't think I'll be playing the same roles forever." When Teen Vogue sits down with her to paint pottery, Camila is fresh off of shooting a big group scene for the comedy Palm Springs. She seems energized by it, excited by the chance to explore loose, partially improvised dialogue with a much different feel than Riverdale's dense, heavily stylized exposition. "Every project, every role is like working a different muscle group that you have to practice," Camila says. After our interview, she heads off to flex another of those muscles: She is scheduled to meet her costar for Windfall, a film she's starring in. The film will shoot during Riverdale's brief hiatus, and Camila plays a young woman with medical ambitions who gets drawn into a criminal investigation with her husband. According to Camila, it's a role unlike any that she’s played so far.

The last time Camila came to a Color Me Mine-type place to paint pottery was right after she and the rest of the Riverdale cast had moved to Vancouver to start filming the show. She went with the other young women who anchor the cast, including Lili Reinhart, Madelaine Petsch, and Ashleigh Murray, and they used pottery painting as a bonding activity. It seems to have worked: Camila says they're all close to this day, taking their Hollywood journeys together, supporting each other through self-taped auditions and long hours on set. "None of us knew what to expect,” Camila says, “and we've all been dealing with it together."

With a support system behind her and conviction in her own approach to life, Camila says she's taking her next career steps "one day at a time." Time flies, so it's surreal to remember that it hasn't even been three full years since audiences learned Camila's name. She's got a whole lot of career and life ahead of her. She's ready to be surprised by it if you are. Maybe one day she'll even get a real day off.